SystemRescueCd is a Gentoo-based Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM or USB drive, designed for repairing a system and data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out administration tasks on a computer, such as creating and editing hard disk partitions. It contains many useful system utilities (GNU Parted, PartImage, FSTools) and some basic ones (editors, Midnight Commander, network tools). It aims to be very easy to use. The kernel of the system supports all of today's most important file systems, including ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS, Reiser4FS, btrfs, XFS, JFS, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660, as well as network file systems, such as Samba and NFS.

Marcos Guglielmetti has announced the fifth test release of Musix GNU+Linux 1.0r3, a Debian-based distribution containing a comprehensive collection of free software for musicians: "Musix GNU+Linux 1.0r3 Test 5 live DVD and CD released. This is our first DVD! Musix GNU+Linux 1.0r3 Test 5 live DVD and live CD are both testing versions produced on the basis of the stable version 1.0r2 and the reports about previous tests. Musix 1.0 is based on KNOPPIX and Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 stable. The goals of the DVD are: better language support; more education, video, graphic, and audio applications; a better general purpose system. New packages on the live DVD: OpenOffice.org (75 languages), full KDE Desktop (63 languages), dozens of educational applications, a 75Mb Steinway Piano Soundfont, full printer and scanner support, Amarok, Scribus, Cinelerra, Kino..." Read the rest of the release announcement for additional information. Download (MD5): MusixGNU+Linux1.0r3_Test5CD.iso (701MB), MusixGNU+Linux1.0r3_Test5DVD.iso (1,878MB).

Michael K. Johnson has announced the first beta release of rPath Linux 2, an appliance operating system: "The first beta test snapshot toward rPath Linux 2 has been released. This release contains: VMware support integrated into the default kernel; open-vm-tools included in vmware group flavors; SYSLINUX's EXTLINUX is the default bootloader; Conary 2.0 with several optimizations and improvements; short group flavors; appliance installer ISO images, installable ISO images and appliance installer ISO images for 32-bit and 64-bit Xen dom0. rPath Linux 2 will be an appliance operating system. In keeping with this focus, the installer ISO images for rPath Linux 2 Beta 1 are intended primarily for testing the installer, and secondarily as a platform for testing appliance development." Here is the full release announcement. Download (MD5) the appliance DVD images from here: rpath-beta1-x86-dvd1.iso (807MB), rpath-beta1-x86_64-dvd1.iso (866MB).

Miklós Vajna has announced the availability of the first release candidate for Frugalware Linux 0.8: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 0.8rc1, the first release candidate of the upcoming 0.8 stable release. A short and incomplete list of changes since 0.8pre2: Improved splash: it now displays till the very end of the shutdown process; fixed the 'packages one by one' select method in the installer; the live CD now supports copy the disc to RAM if enough memory is available to free up the CD/DVD drive; package updates - Linux 2.6.23.14, X.Org 7.3, GNOME 2.20.3, more than 300 other package updates; new packages - etckeeper, Linux Wacom, new X.Org drivers, more than 20 other new packages." More details in the release announcement. Download: frugalware-0.8rc1-i686-dvd1.iso (4,132MB, MD5, torrent).

Ryan Finnie has announced the release of Finnix 91.0, a specialist, Debian-based live CD for system administrators: "Finnix 91.0 released. Finnix 91.0 includes a new Linux kernel (2.6.24), automatic 32-bit/64-bit detection on the x86 platform, stackable RAID/LUKS/LVM detection and setup, and several bug fixes. If you press 'enter' at the boot screen of Finnix 91.0 x86, the boot loader will now detect if you have a 64-bit capable CPU, and will load the appropriate kernel. You can still force 32-bit or 64-bit by entering the 'finnix' or 'finnix64' boot profiles. While RAID, LUKS (encryption) and LVM detection have been in Finnix for awhile now, they were loaded in a certain order, and some configurations were not detected as a result. With Finnix 91.0, most configurations should be detected. For example, an encrypted LVM set on top of two RAID disks should be set up automatically." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information. Download (MD5): finnix-91.0.iso (118MB), finnix-ppc-91.0.iso (131MB).

Barney Tormey has announced the release of Shift Linux 0.6.2, an Ubuntu-based distribution developed by the Neowin.net community: "Shift Linux 0.6 released today. There are three editions released at this time: Shift Linux 0.6 GNOME, Shift Linux 0.6 KDE4, and Shift Linux 0.6 Lite (for older computers). Shift Linux Lite contains two less resource hogging window managers (Xfce and Fluxbox), but will have a full compliment of packages and utilities. All three versions of Shift Linux 0.6 are fully installable (tested and verified). Shift Linux has moved away from its Morphix base and is now based on Ubuntu. This version incorporates Firefox 3 (GranParadiso), OpenOffice.org, new themes, and a tested installer. We've also updated to KDE4. This is a transition version as we move away from Morphix and port over our previous versions to Ubuntu." Here is the complete release announcement. Download (MD5): ShiftLinux-Gnome-0.6.2.iso (663MB, torrent), ShiftLinux-KDE-0.6.2.iso (529MB, torrent), ShiftLinux-Flux-0.6.2.iso (522MB, torrent).

SchilliX 0.6, a non-graphical distribution featuring the latest OpenSolaris technologies, has been released. What's new? "Updated to use OpenSolaris Nevada Build 80; now using a non-DEBUG build of the OS; new keyboard layout recognition and setup method, if you do not use a German keyboard, boot one of the 'Ask KBD Layout' boot entries and wait for being asked for the keyboard layout; thanks to a new mkisofs and to a new 'hsfs' driver, installing the DVD to a hard disk will now correctly hard link all hard linked files in the copy; all /opt/schily programs updated to a recent release; SCCS has been updated to the recent Schily release that adds some new features and fixes some bugs. Warning: this release does not fit on a CD any more, you need to write the image to a DVD to be able to boot it." Here is the full release announcement. Download: SchilliX-0.6.iso.bz2 (348MB, MD5).

The first beta of Mandriva Linux 2008.1 has been released: "The first beta, codenamed 'Ophrys', for Mandriva Linux 2008.1 is now available. Major new features in this pre-release include: new XML-based package meta-information system; out-of-the-box support for the multimedia keys present on many modern keyboards; Perl has been updated to 5.10; reverted to teTeX as the default TeX system; latest NVIDIA (169.09) and ATI (8.45.2) proprietary drivers; KDE 4.0.0 final available in the Cooker; the latest version of Nautilus, the GNOME file and desktop manager; Linux kernel 2.6.24-rc8 with ALSA 1.0.16-rc1." More information can be found on the 2008.1 beta page and also in the official release notes. Download the installable live CDs (with either KDE or GNOME) from here: mandriva...KDE-int-cdrom-i586.iso (671MB, MD5), mandriva...GNOME-int-cdrom-i586.iso (679MB, MD5).

The second beta release of Dreamlinux 3.0, a Debian-based desktop distribution with a Mac OS X-like user interface, is out and ready for testing: "We are proud to announce that Dreamlinux 3.0 beta is now available for download. Main changes: Linux kernel 2.6.23.12; support for a large variety of wireless cards; two window managers - Xfce and GNOME; a balanced set of applications, aiming to deliver an easy-to-use desktop system; the installer and the Dreamlinux Control Panel were improved technically and visually; the proprietary codecs were removed, but are easily installed at any time by Easy Install; AWN (Advanced Window Navigator) is included, together with the traditional Engage. This is a complete re-design to cope with new and easier ways to build and improve it." See the full release announcement for a more detailed list of changes and features. Download: DL3-Beta2.iso (661MB, MD5).

Alan Baghumian has announced the release of Parsix GNU/Linux 1.0r0, a desktop distribution based on Debian's testing branch: "We are proud to announce that the final version of Parsix GNU/Linux 1.0r0, code name 'Ramon', is available now. The main highlights are: Improved live system with new start-up and shut-down scripts, new live structure, new Squashfs + LZMA compression system, updated installer system, new 2.6.23.14 kernel with CFS 24.1, CK, TuxOnIce 3.0-RC5, Iwlwifi and other patches, GNOME 2.20.3, lots of updated packages including OpenOffice.org 2.2.1, GNU Iceweasel 2.0.0.11, GIMP 2.4.3, glibc 2.7, Pidgin 2.3.1, all packages have been synchronized with Debian testing repository as of January 24, 2008, new GUI X.Org configuration tool ported from Ubuntu, new attractive look and feel." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details. Download: parsix_1.0r0-i386.iso (680MB, MD5), parsix_1.0r0-amd64.iso (698MB, MD5).

Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has announced the release of GoblinX 2.6 "Micro" edition, a minimalist live CD based on Slackware Linux: "GoblinX Micro 2.6 is released. The GoblinX Micro edition is the smallest version of our distribution and contains only Fluxbox as windows manager and GTK+-based applications. The main upgrades since the release candidate: added SLAX firewall; added more options to ISOLINUX menu; rebuilt GtkDialog interfaces to not allow resize action; corrected several errors and bugs; added ghdcpd and xrefresh; upgraded some libraries and packages including xorg-server; replaced z.Goblinx with z.Micro; replaced z.User with z.Muser; corrected some sudo issues; removed X.Org default resolution; recompiled Fluxbox against Imlib2." Visit the distribution's news page to read the full release announcement. Download: GoblinX.Micro-2.6.iso (100MB, MD5).

The Elive development team has announced the release of Elive 1.5.0, a new unstable build of the Debian-based distribution: "The Elive Team is proud to announce the new development version 1.5. This is a very experimental Elive. The boot system is entirely rewritten, working but not finished. Many auto-detection and configuration parts are not implemented yet. This version is not ready to be installed, this is a release for testers and collaborators who want to discuss it at the Elive testers group. Changes: updated to Debian 'testing'; Elive installer - option to 'migrate' configuration from installed Linux system; more special hotkeys for laptops working by default; Firefox - a nice feature that shows thumbnails of sites in Google search; a more integrated system of translations." Here is the full release announcement. Download: elive_1.5_very_unstable.iso (698MB, MD5).

Clement Lefebvre has announced the second release candidate for Linux Mint 4.0 "KDE" edition: "The second release candidate for Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna KDE Community Edition is out and available for download. Daryna KDE is nearly as 'minty' as the main edition now. The packages are (safely) up-to-date and the kernel is the Gutsy Gibbon kernel 2.6.22. Mint applications: mintInstall, mintwifi, mintUpdate, mintAssistant, mintUpload. 'Minted' versions of Firefox, Sunbird. Known issues: When shutting down or restarting the live CD it will freeze about 25% of the time at the last step. I had this problem with Gutsy too and have not found a fix for it. This happens more in virtual machines than on real ones. After adding new users log in and check their KMix settings because they will have no sound. Check the output and PCM levels." See the full release notes for more information. Download (MD5): LinuxMint-4.0-KDE-BETA-044.iso (1,002MB, torrent).

Canonical has announced the release of Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS, the second update to its "Long Term Support" release from June 2006: "Canonical, the commercial sponsors of the Ubuntu project, announced today the second maintenance release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, which continues to be supported with maintenance updates and security fixes until June 2009 on desktops and June 2011 on servers. Over 600 post-release updates have been integrated, so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation, and the installation system has been improved. These include security updates and corrections, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Some particularly notable updates in Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS include: Users can configure LVM using RAID partitions as physical volumes; detection of the DAC960 RAID controller...." Read the rest of the press release for further details. Download the updated Ubuntu Server CD images from here (MD5): ubuntu-6.06.2-server-i386.iso (434MB), ubuntu-6.06.2-server-amd64.iso (431MB).

Paul Cutler has announced the third alpha release of Foresight Linux 2.0: "The third alpha of Foresight Linux 2.0 has been released. The Foresight 2.0 alpha series features a new tar-based installer that should install in less than 10 minutes, including formatting a 200 GB hard drive. Foresight is also developing new editions including KDE and Xfce, in addition to GNOME available for x86 and x86_64 processors. Foresight is proud to be the first distribution to ship with: PackageKit to help users update their system and add and remove software; Syslinux - a new bootloader to replace GRUB; GNOME-Do: GNOME Do - allows user to quickly search for many items present in the GNOME desktop environment (applications, Evolution contacts, Firefox bookmarks, files, artists and albums in Rhythmbox, Pidgin buddies, etc.) and perform commonly used actions on those items." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details. Download (SHA1): foresight-1.9.9.alpha3+20080114-x86-dvd1.iso (932MB, torrent), foresight-1.9.9.alpha3+20080114-x86_64-dvd1.iso (984MB, torrent).

FreeBSD 6.3 has been released: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 6.3. This release continues the development of the 6-STABLE branch providing performance and stability improvements, many bug fixes and new features. Some of the highlights: KDE updated to 3.5.8, GNOME updated to 2.20.1, X.Org updated to 7.3; BIND updated to 9.3.4; Sendmail updated to 8.14.2; lagg driver ported from OpenBSD / NetBSD; Unionfs file system re-implemented; freebsd-update now supports an upgrade command. FreeBSD 6.3 is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Junichiro Hagino for his visionary work on the IPv6 protocol and his many other contributions to the Internet and BSD communities." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information. Download: 6.3-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso (625MB, MD5), 6.3-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso (673MB, MD5). Also available via BitTorrent.

The openSUSE development team has announced the release of openSUSE 11.0 Alpha 1: "We kickstart a major development into the next version of openSUSE: openSUSE 11.0. A very early alpha version, Alpha 1, is now available for download and testing. Despite many other products being developed in parallel to Factory, we have seen a heavy stream of development on it, so it is really worth a try if you have time for testing. The main changes against Alpha 0 are: Sat Solver integration, Michael SchrÃ¶der's 'sat solver' library is now the default package solver for libzypp; heavy changes to the appearance of the Qt installation (ported to Qt 4); KDE 4.0.0, Perl 5.10, glibc 2.7, NetworkManager 0.7, CUPS 1.3.5, Pulseaudio." Here is the full release announcement. Installation CD and DVD images are ready for download; quick torrent links to the DVDs: openSUSE-11.0-Alpha1-DVD-i386.iso (4,348MB), openSUSE-11.0-Alpha1-DVD-x86_64.iso (4,316MB).

Jean-Philippe Guillemin has announced the release of Zenwalk Linux 5.0: "Zenwalk Linux 5.0 has been released! Version 5.0 is the first Zenwalk release to introduce the Freedesktop HAL system. Noticeable enhancements found in version 5.0 are numerous software updates, including the latest X.Org 7.3 suite of X servers, drivers, fonts and other software. Other updates include the latest version of the Iceweasel web browser, the Icedove email client and hundreds more! WiFi support in Zenwalk 5.0 is probably the very best of what you can expect to find in the GNU/Linux world. The modern and powerful Wicd WiFi browser replaces WiFi Radar, while the Intel wireless device firmware is provided out of the box. Following tradition, Zenwalk's default desktop environment is based on Xfce, which is now at version 4.4.2." Further details can be found in the release announcement. Download: zenwalk-5.0.iso (469MB, MD5).

Tom Kerremans has released a new development build of Trinity Rescue Kit, a Mandriva-based distribution designed to facilitate data rescue tasks from Linux and Windows: "This release should fix the hottest problems reported on the forum: WinPass and new Intel Ethernet cards that weren't supported." From the changelog: "WinPass received the newer version of chntpw; added the Intel E1000 network card driver from Intel; put in a very recent kernel 2.6.23.12; all start-up options from the initial syslinux start-up screen now have pci=conf1 added to it; minor bug fixes." Read the complete release announcement for further information. Download (MD5): trinity-rescue-kit.3.3-build-310.iso (112MB).

Troy Dawson has announced the release of Scientific Linux 5.1, a Red Hat-based distribution with additional software for scientific and educational purpose: "Scientific Linux 5.1 is finally out. This release has the ability to easily make sites (customized Scientific Linux distributions). The ability to make sites was missing from SL 5.0. We also managed to add back some of those packages that didn't make it into SL 5.0, as well as a few packages new for this release. Scientific Linux release 5.1 is based on the rebuilding of RPMs out of SRPMs from Enterprise 5 Server and Client, including Update 1. It also includes all errata and bugfixes up until January 16, 2008." Some of the extra software added to Scientific Linux include 915resolution, Alpine, CFITSIO, dropit, FUSE, Graphviz, IceWM, Intel wireless firmware, Java, MadWiFi, GStreamer plugins, NdisWrapper, NEdit, NumPy, OpenAFS, R and others. Read the release announcement and release notes for a detailed list of features. Download: SL-51-011508-i386-DVD.iso (4,345MB, SHA1).

pfSense, a firewall distribution based on FreeBSD, has reached the fourth and final release candidate for the new version 1.2: "The pfSense development team is happy to bring you the final release candidate in the 1.2 series. Summary of the changes since RC3: libc fix for a security advisory; do not ping other end of IPsec connections on CARP backup hosts; fix edit.php error when opening empty file; math fix on throughput graph; increase maximum alias count (99 to 299); captive portal locking improvements to fix issues in high load environments; IPsec stability fixes for large deployments; VLAN support for ALIX hardware; forced page refreshes removed from all pages; fix for display of wireless networks with a space in the SSID; updated PHP version...." Here is the full release announcement. Download: pfSense-1.2-RC4-LiveCD-Installer.iso.gz (50.7MB, MD5).

Eddy Nigg has announced the first release candidate for StartCom MultiMedia Edition 5.0.7: "We are glad to announce a first release candidate of version 5.0.7 of the StartCom MultiMedia Edition codenamed 'Kessem'. This test release introduces a new low-latency 2.6.23 kernel in addition to many, many updated packages and version upgrades. We invite anybody interested to install this test release and help us find eventual problems in this distribution. What's New? This OS is now much more compatible and in par with the StartCom AS-5 series (aka RHEL 5) as far as the basic underlying system and desktop packages is concerned. This includes a switch from Xgl to AIGLX for Compiz, but Firefox and Thunderbird have been updated to more recent 2.0.0.10 and 2.0.0.5 releases. The desktop is polished and boosts a huge sound and video section." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information. Download: Kessem-i386-DVD-rc1.iso (3,830MB, MD5).

Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has announced the availability of the first release candidate for Goblinx 2.6 "Standard" edition, a Slackware-based distribution featuring five desktop environments and window managers: "The GoblinX Standard 2.6 RC1 is released. GoblinX Standard is the original edition, first released at the end of October 2004. It includes five window managers: KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, Enlightenment and WindowMaker. Main upgrades since 2.0/2.5: upgraded all packages; upgraded Linux kernel (2.6.21.3), Aufs, linux-live scripts and Squashfs; rebuilt Magic Center to add new features and to use with different windows managers; rebuilt GoblinX hard disk installer; added more graphical interfaces; corrected and upgraded some scripts; removed Beryl; Compiz and Mesa are included in a separated module. This is the first release candidate." Visit the project's news page to read the full release announcement. Download: GoblinX-2.6.rc_01.iso (296MB, MD5).

Voltalinux is a server-oriented GNU/Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux and the "pkgsrc" package management system from NetBSD. Voltalinux 2.0 "Viareggio", a new major update, was released yesterday: "Voltalinux 2.0 is out. Voltalinux 2.0 is based on the 2.6.21 kernel, Slackware 12.0, and pkgsrc-2007Q3. The big new feature is the installer. 120 packages ready to be installed (even those for Slackware 12.0). Like all the previous releases, Voltalinux 2.0 has no graphical user interface and is more server oriented as most of the packages are for server use. These include Postfix, Dovecot, SpamAssassin, Pure-FTPd, MySQL, Hylafax, Quagga, Exim, MaraDNS and many more." Here is the brief release announcement. Download from here: voltalinux2.0.iso (314MB, MD5).

Alan Baghumian has announced the third test release of Parsix GNU/Linux 1.0r0, a Debian-based desktop distribution: "The third testing release of Parsix GNU/Linux 1.0r0, code name 'Ramon, has been released. Changes since test-2: GNOME 2.20.3, fixed reported bugs and several system clean-ups. The main highlights are: Improved live system with new start-up and shut-down scripts, new live structure, new Squashfs + LZMA compression system, brand new 2.6.23.9 kernel with CFS v24, CK, TuxOnIce, Iwlwifi and other patches, new GUI X.Org configuration tool ported from Ubuntu, new attractive blackish look and feel and more. This is a well tested system and there is not any critical breakage, but we need the community help to test sections like GNOME desktop and included software packages." The release announcement, release notes. Download: parsix_1.0r0-test-3-i386.iso (677MB, MD5), parsix_1.0r0-test-3-amd64.iso (695MB, MD5).

Steve Langasek has announced that the third alpha release of Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" is out and ready for testing: "Welcome to Hardy Heron Alpha-3, which will in time become Ubuntu 8.04." What's new? "X.Org 7.3, with an emphasis on better auto-configuration with a minimal configuration file; Linux kernel 2.6.24 brings in significant enhancements and fixes that have been merged in the last few months into the mainline kernel; PulseAudio enabled by default; PolicyKit integration makes it possible to run administrative applications as a normal user; Firefox 3 Beta 2 brings much better system integration including theming that mirrors the system such as icons and colours as well as having GTK+2 form buttons and open dialog." More info in the release announcement and release notes. Download (MD5): hardy-desktop-i386.iso (678MB), hardy-desktop-amd64.iso (683MB). Also available: Kubuntu (download, release notes), Edubuntu (download) and Xubuntu 8.04 Alpha 3 (download).

Miklós Vajna has announced the second pre-release of Frugalware Linux 0.8: "The Frugalware Developer Team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware 0.8pre2, the second technical preview of the upcoming 0.8 stable release. A short and incomplete list of changes since 0.8pre1: support for executing hooks inside the package manager - e.g. after a successful system upgrade; improved blacklisting support for kernel modules. Package updates: Xfce 4.4.2 - with bug fixes and translations; OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 - with security and bug fixes; Tcl and Tk 8.5 - with support for anti-aliased fonts; Octave 3.0.0 - compatibility with Matlab graphics is much better now; updated encryption libs - gnutls 2.2 and libgcrypt 1.4." See the release announcement and changelog for a more detailed list of changes. Download (MD5): frugalware-0.8pre2-i686-dvd1.iso (4,307MB).

DesktopBSD 1.6, a user-friendly desktop operating system based on FreeBSD, has been released: "It is my great pleasure to announce the availability of DesktopBSD 1.6 final. This release is the first stable release of the 1.6 branch and comes with a great number of new features and improvements. It is based on the second release candidate of FreeBSD's upcoming production release 6.3 and provides the user with an enhanced KDE 3.5.8 desktop environment. The most notable new features are: X.Org release 7.3; live CD/DVD feature for testing the system without installation; revised installer supporting upgrades from 1.0 and previous 1.6 release candidates; improved package manager; inclusion of the NVIDIA graphics driver for hardware 3D rendering...." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details. Download (MD5): DesktopBSD-1.6-i386.iso (1,524MB, torrent), DesktopBSD-1.6-amd64.iso (1,488MB, torrent).

The DARKSTAR Linux development team has announced the release of DARKSTAR Linux 2008.1, a beginner-friendly, Slackware-based distribution for the desktop: "We have the great pleasure to announce the version 2008.1 of the DARKSTAR Linux distribution. DARKSTAR Linux 2008.1 is a desktop oriented Linux operating system, which is easy to install, configure and use and which targets the beginners in Linux. It has many easy-to-use graphical tools, and a range of applications for office, multimedia and gaming. DARKSTAR Linux 2008.1 is published in a DVD ISO format; it can be run as a live system, or it can be install to hard drive. DARKSTAR Linux 2008.1 includes: Yet another Linux Installer (YaLI), Disk Manager, X.Org Setup, Network Configurator, Package Manager, Time Configurator, Services Configurator, Linux Kernel 2.6.23.8, KDE 3.5.8, OpenOffice.org 2.3.0, Firefox 2.0.0.9...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Download (MD5): darkstar-2008.1-i586-1dvd.iso (2,399MB, torrent).

Martin Ultima has announced the release of Ultima Linux 8.3, a user-friendly, Slackware-based live distribution with an automatic update tool: "Announcing the Ultima Linux 8.3 release! I'm not even going to pretend to write all this marketing rubbish, because quite honestly I'm not much good at it and it's a senseless waste of time. Really there's no point anyway, on the surface there's really nothing new - most of the changes are upgrades (kernel 2.6.23.12, KDE 3.5.8, Firefox 2.0.0.11, Thunderbird 2.0.0.9, OpenOffice.org 2.3.1), although you will probably see some really nice new wallpaper images in KDE. There have been a few fairly major changes with this release, so expect bugs, but then again that's what you get with pretty much any new software release... it seems to be stable on my machine anyway." See the release announcement and release notes for more information. Download the live DVD image via BitTorrent: ultimalinux-8.3-LiveDVD.iso (2,775MB).

Texstar has announced the release of PCLinuxOS 2008 "MiniMe" edition, a minimalist live CD with KDE: "Here is a little MiniMe 2008. It comes with 2.6.22.15 kernel, ALSA 1.0.15 and a very basic KDE 3.5.8 desktop. This is a minimal live CD that is bootable, plus it can be installed. Add in your own background, window decoration, localizations, preferred applications and supporting libraries to fully trick out your desktop. Other changes: I moved Internet and Clock setup to a Utilities folder on the users desktop. Only one question at boot to select the keyboard. Other utilities include ALSA sound configuration, ATI/NVIDIA installation tool, Make Live CD GUI, Make Live USB key and Redo-MBR with OS-probing utility for adding other GRUB boot entries into the GRUB menu. Root password and user setup moved to first boot after installation to hard drive. Also included are NdisWrapper support files." Here is the full release announcement. Download: pclinuxos-minime-2008.iso (297MB, MD5).

The developers of trixbox, a CentOS-based specialist distribution that enables the user to easily set up a VoIP Asterisk PBX, have announced the release of version 2.4.0: "This set is the latest version of trixbox CE. This is a major change from trixbox 2.2 in that it is based on CentOS 5.1, Asterisk 1.4, and FreePBX 2.3. One problem with trixbox CE 2.x is the lack of hardware support for current systems, especially newer Dell platforms. The vast majority of this has been solved because trixbox CE 2.4 is now based on top of the latest CentOS 5.1 kernel. This now provides support for a much larger number of motherboards, network cards and components, such as hardware RAID controllers. CentOS 5.1 also has high resolution timers built into the kernel so the need for hardware timers on the PCI bus should no longer be required." Read the full press release for further details. Download (MD5): trixbox-2.4.0.iso (656MB).

Clement Lefebvre announced the release of Linux Mint 4.0 Fluxbox CE Beta 028, the first ever release of a Fluxbox-based Linux Mint Community Edition, which will be followed by a stable release: "The first BETA of Linux Mint 4.0 Daryna Fluxbox Community Edition was released. Maintained in Romania by Shane Joe Lazar, this edition replaces Gnome with Fluxbox to provide a much more lightweight operating system." Follow the announcement and the release notes for related information. Also announced is Linux Mint 4.0 Debian Edition Alpha 023, labelled as Alpha to show that it is a preview and won't be followed by any Beta or stable release: "We ported our desktop on top of Debian Testing and the result is very interesting. This Alpha release comes as a non-installable liveCD and gives an idea of how Linux Mint would behave if it was to switch base and adopt Debian as its supporting technology." The announcement and the release notes. Download: LinuxMint-4.0-Fluxbox-BETA-028.iso (513MB, MD5) and LinuxMint-4.0-Debian-ALPHA-023.iso (695MB, MD5).

antiX 7.01, a lightweight derivative of SimplyMEPIS 7.0, was released as an update to antiX 7.0: "antiX is built and maintained by MEPIS community member anticapitalista, as a free version of MEPIS for very old 32-bit PC hardware and is designed to work on computers with as little as 64 MB RAM and Pentium II or equivalent, but not AMD K5/K6 processors... This updated version of 'Lysistrata' is built using the MEPIS Linux 7.0 core, including the MEPIS 7 updated and security-patched 2.6.22.14 kernel and upgraded MEPIS utilities, Debian security upgrades and application upgrades since antiX-M7 was released on October 29. The Live CD scripts have been improved, extra 'cheatcodes' added and bugs squashed. Kernel headers are now included and antiX uses X.Org 7.2 from the Debian Testing repositories. This release contains the new GRUB menu theme developed and contributed by the MEPIS community." Check the full release announcement, the website of antiX, and its forum for more information. Download: antiX-M7.01-base.iso (installable LiveCD using fluxbox, 177MB, MD5), antiX-M7.01.iso, (309MB, MD5).

Ian Wells has announced the release of SME Server 7.3, a server-oriented Linux distribution based on CentOS: "The SME Server development team is pleased to announce the release of SME Server 7.3. This release is based on CentOS 4.6 and all packages have been updated to the latest releases. Changes in this release: using 'sme multipart' boot parameter now enables quotas on all LVMs; support for disconnect option in rhsbl plugin; support for disconnect immediately if dnsbl plugin rejects recipient addresses; newer version of ipsvd to resolve a few Thunderbird issues; support for configurable time-outs; now able to remove Corporate DNS setting; RAID reconstruction now finishes after using 'sme nolvm' passed at install time; ability to use console restore with CD or DVD recordable media...." Further details can be found in the release notes. Download: smeserver-7.3-i386.iso (529MB, MD5).

Happy New Year! Hisham Muhammad has announced the release of GoboLinux 014, an independent distribution whose main claim to fame is a radically redesigned file system layout: "We are pleased to introduce GoboLinux 014, the new major release of GoboLinux, the Linux distribution with an alternative directory structure. This release is the result of over a year of work. The live CD build environment is highly customizable and packages were built using a dynamically-generated sand-boxed environment which insulates the source code and its dependencies during compilation. Major upgrades include KDE 3.5.8, glibc 2.5 and X.Org 7.2, as well as new versions of the GoboLinux management tools." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information. Download: GoboLinux-014-i686.iso (667MB, MD5).

3CX Phone System is a specialist, Debian-based Linux distribution designed to run a complete unified communications platform. The 3CX client, included in the distribution, can also be installed separately on most hardware as well as the cloud. It provides a complete open standards-based IP PBX and phone system that works with popular SIP trunks and IP phones. It will automatically configure all supported peripherals and it also comes with clients for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. The ISO image includes a free license for the 3CX PBX edition. The ISO image contains the standard Debian installer which installs a minimal system with the nginx web server, PostgreSQL database, iptables firewall and Secure Shell. Options not relevant to 3CX have been removed form the distribution. Download the installation ISO image from here: debian-8.6.0-amd64-netinst-3cx.iso (265MB).